Telecel Employees Issue Passionate Defence Of Operator

Telecel employees have issued a statement in support of the company’s indeginisation proposal.

The proposal was to cede 11% to an Employees Share Ownership Trust (ESOT) meaning that Vimpelcom would remain with a 49% shareholding in the company.

Sounds fair enough to us.

In a statement issued on Monday employees of the mobile network operator which was issued with a special 30-day license to wind up operations issued a passionate defence of their employer.

They said that the sudden decision by the Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to cancel the Telecel license severely affected them as native Zimbabwean employees as the regulator had not provided a tangilble remedy for them.

The employees believe that the indigenisation plan to give 11% to ESOT ‘will significantly and meaningfully empower us as Zimbabwean citizens and is in line with the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset)’.

A passionate appeal was then made to government:

We therefore would like to appeal to the Government of Zimbabwe to seriously re-consider the decision to cancel Telecel Zimbabwe’s Licence. It is common cause that such a decision will have a profound negative impact not only on Telecel’s +/-1000 Employees but also on the nation as jobs, business, and revenue to the fiscus will be lost if this decision is seen through. Downstream our business partners, suppliers, airtime vendors, airtime dealers, agencies and the social projects we support will also be adversely affected…
We challenge the government not to relent on its mandate to protect and provide for its citizens.

The communication ended with the statement… 11% shares to the employees is the way to go!

This one has long legs and there will be bloody noses. We hope common sense prevails because over a 1,000 workers, that is real people with real bills and families.

In a country where there is very little formal employment and opportunities shrinking for downstream service providers, do we really want this situation to get even more dire?